What is it that is lost when a person dies, that cannot be regained by creating a new one?
I’m uncertain about the value and fungibility of human life. Emotions clearly support non-fungibility, in particular concerning your own life, and it’s a strong argument. On the other hand, my goals are sufficiently similar to everyone else’s goals that loss of my life wouldn’t prevent my goals from controlling the world, it will be done through others. Only existential disaster or severe value drift would prevent my goals from controlling the world.
(The negative response to your comment may be explained by the fact that you appear to be expressing confidence in the unusual solution (that value of life is low) to this difficult question without giving an argument for that position. At best the points you’ve made are arguments in support of uncertainty in the position that the value of life is very high, not strong enough to support the claim that it’s low. If your claim is that we shouldn’t be that certain, you should clarify by stating that more explicitly. If your claim is that the value of life is low, the argument your are making should be stronger, or else there is no point in insisting on that claim, even if that happens to be your position, since absent argument it won’t be successfully instilled in others.)
Emotions clearly support non-fungibility, in particular concerning your own life, and it’s a strong argument.
I (now) understand how the existence of certain emotions in certain situations can serve as an argument for or against some proposition, but I don’t think the emotions in this case form that strong an argument. There’s a clear motive. It was evolution, in the big blue room, with the reproductive organs. It cares about the survival of chunks of genetic information, not about the well-being of the gene expressions.
Thanks for helping me understand the negative response. My claim here is not about the value of life in general, but about the value of some particular “person” continuing to exist. I think the terminal value of this ceasing to exist is zero. Since posting my top-level comment I have provided some arguments in favor of my case, and also hopefully clarified my position.
I’m uncertain about the value and fungibility of human life. Emotions clearly support non-fungibility, in particular concerning your own life, and it’s a strong argument. On the other hand, my goals are sufficiently similar to everyone else’s goals that loss of my life wouldn’t prevent my goals from controlling the world, it will be done through others. Only existential disaster or severe value drift would prevent my goals from controlling the world.
(The negative response to your comment may be explained by the fact that you appear to be expressing confidence in the unusual solution (that value of life is low) to this difficult question without giving an argument for that position. At best the points you’ve made are arguments in support of uncertainty in the position that the value of life is very high, not strong enough to support the claim that it’s low. If your claim is that we shouldn’t be that certain, you should clarify by stating that more explicitly. If your claim is that the value of life is low, the argument your are making should be stronger, or else there is no point in insisting on that claim, even if that happens to be your position, since absent argument it won’t be successfully instilled in others.)
I (now) understand how the existence of certain emotions in certain situations can serve as an argument for or against some proposition, but I don’t think the emotions in this case form that strong an argument. There’s a clear motive. It was evolution, in the big blue room, with the reproductive organs. It cares about the survival of chunks of genetic information, not about the well-being of the gene expressions.
Thanks for helping me understand the negative response. My claim here is not about the value of life in general, but about the value of some particular “person” continuing to exist. I think the terminal value of this ceasing to exist is zero. Since posting my top-level comment I have provided some arguments in favor of my case, and also hopefully clarified my position.